[Peace-discuss] Israel's very own Guantanamos

Sat Feb 14 11:29:07 CST 2009

    From the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram:

     The "death ride" -- welcome to 21st century torture, says Khaled  
Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem

     Israeli maltreatment of Palestinian captives and political  
prisoners has reached unprecedented levels of brutality, according to  
lawyers, human rights groups and newly-released prisoners.

     There are currently as many as 12,000 Palestinian detainees  
languishing in Israeli detention camps, many of them without charge or  
trial. They include hundreds of university professors, engineers,  
school teachers as well as religious and civic leaders, students,  
resistance fighters and women activists.

     Two years ago, the Israeli occupation authorities abducted  
hundreds of democratically- elected officials, including mayors,  
members of local city councils, law-makers, and cabinet ministers,  
many associate with Hamas's political wing.

     Israel employs a set of draconian laws, some dating back to the  
British mandate era, to torment Palestinian prisoners. The same laws  
are also used to lend a façade of legality to other harsh treatment of  
Palestinians, such as house demolitions, land confiscation and  
deportation.

     Normally, the harsh treatment meted out to Palestinian detainees  
starts in earnest with crack Israeli soldiers raiding a given  
Palestinian home in the quiet hours before dawn. There, the  
undisciplined soldiers normally ransack the house, vandalise property  
and furniture, smash house appliances and terrorise the entire family,  
before blindfolding and handcuffing their victim and dragging him away  
to a military truck that takes him to one of the dozens of  
interrogation centres all over Israel and the occupied Palestinian  
territories.

     Upon arrival at the interrogation centre, the detainee is  
instantly subjected to an array of harsh treatment techniques designed  
to shock him and destroy his psychological immunity. These include  
sleep deprivation and solitary confinement as well as sporadic beating.

     Then the victim is made to go through the routine technique  
called shabh whereby he is forced to sit on a 25cm high stool, with  
his hands tied to his back. He can be kept in this extremely  
uncomfortable position for weeks or even months except for short  
periods to go to the toilet and eat.

     The main purpose behind the harsh treatment is ostensibly to  
extract confessions from the victim. On many occasions, the victims  
confess to having committed fictitious violations only to escape the  
harsh and intolerable torture. Eventually, however, if no confessions  
are extracted, the detainee is sentenced to administrative detention,  
or open-ended captivity without being charged or tried.

     Torture, which the Israeli judicial authorities euphemistically  
refer to as "moderate physical and psychological pressure", is  
officially sanctioned by Israel's law. Indeed, several Palestinian  
detainees have recently died in Israeli jails either due to torture or  
medical negligence. According to the Palestinian Prisoner Club, which  
monitors Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails,  
167 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since 1967.

     However, while torture was normally performed on detainees mainly  
in order to extract confessions, the Israeli prison authorities have  
been using torture for the purpose of simply tormenting and  
humiliating Palestinian detainees.

     "Their goal is to make us suffer, to torment us, to humiliate us.  
They want to punish us further for our survival, for refusing to die  
and disappear as a people, for refusing to collapse. Perhaps they  
think that by tormenting us, they get the feeling that they are  
avenging the holocaust, at least vicariously," said Mohamed Abu Zneid,  
from Dura, who was released recently from an Israeli detention camp  
near the Egyptian borders. "But I can say that such behaviour can only  
come from a sick people, a sadistic people. Otherwise, why would  
normal people behave this way?"

     "Administrative detention" which is a mere euphemism for  
prolonged and mostly unlawful captivity as punishment for one's  
political thoughts and attitudes has become of late the modus operandi  
of Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners. Today, Israel is  
detaining hundreds of mostly innocent Palestinians in detention camps  
all over Israel, such as the notorious Kitziot concentration camp in  
the Negev desert.

     A few years ago, Mustafa Shawar, a detainee at Kitziot, informed  
this writer that on several occasions he had appealed to the Jewish  
military "judge" at the Treblinka-like facility to tell him why he was  
being incarcerated so that he wouldn't commit the same violation again  
once he was released. Shawar, a senior lecturer at the University of  
Hebron, said the judge paid no attention to his just request. "He told  
me that he wouldn't grant me the privilege of knowing why I was in  
jail because, as he said, the Jews are the masters and non-Jews are  
the slaves and the chosen people are under no moral or legal  
obligation to explain to the inferiors why they are being mistreated."

     Today, Shawar is still languishing at Kitziot for the fourth  
successive year, not knowing why he is being tormented by a state that  
claims to be a "light unto nations" and the "only democracy in the  
Middle East".

     Shawar is not an exceptional case. He epitomises the fate of  
thousands of Palestinian detainees and hostages languishing in Israeli  
detention camps, mostly for harbouring ideas and thoughts that the  
Ashkenazi establishment deems too dangerous.

     Similarly, Azzam Salhab, professor of comparative religion at  
Hebron University, has been languishing in the same desert  
concentration camp for eight years on vague charges such as  
"constituting a danger to the safety and security of Israel and the  
Jewish people."

     According to the Nafha Society, a human rights group defending  
Palestinian prisoners' rights, the Israeli occupation authorities  
issue dozens of administrative detention orders per month.

     Earlier, this week, the Israeli army renewed the "administrative  
detention" for Radi Sami Al-Asi for additional six months. Al-Asi, a  
journalist from the northern West Bank town of Nablus, was arrested on  
unspecified charges. However, when it became clear that there was no  
evidence indicting him, the Israeli military judge decided to sentence  
him to six months in jail, renewable for as long as the occupation  
authorities deem fit. So far, Al-Asi has spent more than 38 months in  
administrative detention without knowing why.

     Farhat Asad, a 40-year-old father of three children from  
Ramallah, was sentenced to a sixth term of administrative detention on  
16 June. All in all, Asad has spent more than 100 months in  
administrative detention.

     According to Tawhid Shaaban, a prominent lawyer from East  
Jerusalem, some detainees have spent nine years in Israeli captivity  
without charge or trial. "Yes, this happens in a state that claims to  
be the only democracy in the Middle East."

     The so-called "death ride" is one of the most agonising and  
nightmarish experiences a detainee undergoes. It starts with a sudden  
raid of a given ward by the notorious Nahshon squad, which is  
specialised in repressing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Then  
a prisoner or several prisoners are ordered to board an extremely  
filthy, hot and nearly hermetically sealed white vehicle, allegedly in  
order to appear before a judge several hundred kilometres away. The  
hateful vehicle would move very slowly from one prison to the other to  
carry additional prisoners, including dangerous Jewish criminals. The  
car would stop every hour for refreshment, while the inmates are  
sweating in the back chamber.

     The nightmarish journey, which could last for 24 hours, is first  
and foremost meant to make the prisoners suffer as much as possible in  
the oven-like metal chamber where there is very little oxygen. The  
prisoners are barred from using toilets for close to 16 hours, and  
some are forced to urinate and defecate inside the lock-up car.

     Saed Yassin, a human rights activist describes the "death ride"  
as "an intolerable and unbearable form of torture. They don't treat  
you as a human being but as cattle or a piece of luggage. People are  
left to rot and suffer in these oven- like chambers for up to 24 hours  
without food, without water, and with very little oxygen. And if they  
want to torment a given person, he is forced to undergo this nightmare  
every few days."

     In addition to the death ride, the Israeli Prison Authority has  
been introducing additional forms of punishments, aimed at breaking  
the prisoner's will. These include barring family visits for an  
extended period of times for the slightest and pettiest violation of  
outstanding instructions.

     Moreover, the Israeli occupation authorities have been barring  
family visits for more than 900 Gazan prisoners in Israeli jails under  
the pretext of the 18-month harsh blockade which Israel has been  
imposing in Gaza. The Red Cross asked Israel on several occasions to  
allow Gazans to visit their beloved ones, but to no avail.

     Israel recently resorted to "unorthodox tactics" to harass  
Palestinian prisoners, including raiding and vandalising their homes  
and mistreating their wives and children, imposing hefty financial  
fines on them, and carrying out surprise searches usually after  
midnight.

     Last week, lawyers and newly-released prisoners reported that the  
Israeli Prison Authorities have naked Jewish women, probably  
prostitutes, harass prisoners, especially religious inmates, through  
sexually suggestive behaviour. A spokesman for the prison authorities  
refused to confirm or deny the revelation.

     C a p t i o n : Palestinians inspect the wreckage of a car hit by  
an Israeli air strike on Gaza, virtually the largest open air prison  
in the world

     Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/902/re1.htm 